Applied ecology is a framework for the application of knowledge about ecosystems so that actions can be taken to create a better balance and harmony between people and nature in order to reduce human impact on other beings and their habitats.

Winter plant ID is often considered more difficult, and is usually attempted by those who are already comfortable in plant identification. However, that doesn’t have to be the case! With a little practice, anyone can develop their winter identification skills.

This book is first divided into shrubs and trees. A shrub is a woody plant, generally 1-3 meters tall (but can reach up to 10 meters in some cases), often with multiple stems. Trees are single stem and reach over 10 meters tall when mature. Within each section the plants are arranged alphabetically by scientific name.

Shrubs and trees are then divided into alternate and opposite branching patterns. In an alternate branch arrangement, smaller stems grow off the main branch individually, or singly. They often alternate growing from one side of the branch, then the other. In an opposite arrangement, two smaller stems will grow off the main branch in pairs, directly opposite each other.

Earth Law and the Rights of Nature: A New Generation of Laws Built for Nature Wilson, Grant, Kayman, Lindsey, Bartlett, Paul, and Milena Popov John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Earth Law Center, Environmental Education Fund
Forget doom and gloom. Let’s educate students about the Rights of Nature, an inspiring, evolving legal development which is gaining traction in the US and around the world, and which can promote the cultural shift needed to address our overlapping intersecting environmental crises — climate change, accelerating species extinction, and ecosystem collapse. The Rights of Nature is one aspect of Earth Law. Some of the other specific movements falling under the banner of Earth law are nonhuman rights for animals, defining ecocide as a crime, rights of future generations, legal guardianship for nature, and Indigenous legalities. In most countries, Nature has the legal status of mere property. The Rights of Nature recognizes that humans and Nature are in a relationship, rather than Nature merely providing a hoard of natural resources for indiscriminate human use. The legal structures discussed in Rights of Nature literature codifies the details of this restored relationship, rather than actually creating it. Nature becomes a legal entity with basic rights: the right to exist, flourish, thrive and regenerate. The Rights of Nature can also complement Indigenous rights by empowering Indigenous peoples to serve as legal guardians of their traditional territories. This poster and a companion open access CUNY Commons webpage and repository will provide links to curated video clips, films, case studies, a course book, a graduate level course syllabus, mock trial workshops, and written materials that can be used for incorporating the Rights of Nature and complimentary legal movements concepts into curricula.

Introduction to the basic principles of ecology and evolutionary biology emphasizing quantitative approaches and hypothesis testing. Scientific reasoning, computer literacy, and writing skills are developed in the laboratory.

This first-year undergraduate open textbook covers the most salient environmental issues from both biological and social science perspectives.

This textbook is intended to provide an introduction to environmental science and sustainability at Trent. The textbook is adapted from the well-known Canadian text Environmental Science by the late Bill Freedman, a professor at Dalhousie University. The book is about environmental issues that are particularly important in Canada, and the ways they are being dealt with by governments and society-at-large. This book was written from the ground-up to provide Canadian information and examples. This national context is integrated throughout the text, along with North American and global data that provide a broader perspective. Special Canadian Focus boxes illustrate important examples of environmental issues in our national context. At the same time, Global Focus boxes enhance the international context for learning about issues, while In Detail boxes examine particular topics in greater depth.

This free, open course is offered by Charles Darwin University to provide an introduction to Charles Darwin, the theory of evolution, Alfred Russel Wallace, and an overview of adaptation of tropical organisms in the Northern Territory of Australia. You will experience highly engaging videos and innovative, interactive media. This course won Blackboard’s 2014 Exemplary Course Award and Director’s Choice for Courses with Distinction.

The causes and consequences of global biodiversity loss and species extinctions are complex and rapidly changing across spatial and temporal scales. They have both local and global manifestations and are entangled with biological, socio-cultural, economic, and political processes. Many of these challenges demand novel approaches, including innovative research and interdisciplinary analysis. They need new skills and methods from various disciplines and expert communities, including the humanities, social sciences, and biophysical sciences. They also require rethinking who conducts research and communicates findings and how knowledge is produced at the intersection of research and higher education institutions and social change. 

This book aims to respond to these challenges. Extinction Stories was co-authored by undergraduate students at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, a private research university in Worcester, Massachusetts (USA), while exploring issues of extinction, environmental conservation, and biodiversity loss. The following twenty chapters combine the final projects conducted by students in the Great Problem Seminar (GPS) Extinctions course during the Fall of 2020 and the Biodiversity course in the Spring of 2021. Both courses took place while the world was still facing the impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic—a global crisis that, as our current sixth mass extinction, is also profoundly rooted in long-lasting processes of habitat destruction and human-induced environmental change.

This text may also be accessed at extinctionstories.pressbooks.com/.

This unit of study is an exploration of disturbance ecology and forest health.

Fish, Fishing, and Conservation is a 389-page, peer-reviewed open textbook intended for undergraduate students who are exploring majors in Fish & Wildlife. It is also relevant to a general audience or for use in courses which explore social and ethical aspects of fish, fishing and conservation.

People, places, and approaches to fishing are as varied as the diverse fish fauna that exist on the planet. As conservation planners recognize the value of substantial engagement of stakeholders in decision making and ineffectiveness of rigid top-down management approaches, Fish, Fishing, and Conservation asserts that all peoples must play a role in conservation. Through case studies, engaging narrative and graphics, and exercises, the text explores major motivations for fishing and non-fishing related values, responsible fisheries practices, the rights of all people to decide how to manage and conserve fish, their habitats, and how they are utilized in the context of overfishing as a pressing global problem for which appropriate solutions are not easily found nor implemented. Introductory chapters examine fish, fishing, and why fish matter and examine the role of values in driving conservation initiatives. Fish and their unique sensory capabilities are described along with a review of recent studies to examine issues of pain, sentience, and learning in fishes living in a foreign, underwater world. The text incorporates these new findings in conservation and management leading readers to evaluate and adopt suitable approaches to ethical reasoning which consider the welfare needs of wild and cultured fishes. Later chapters focus on the role of gender in fishing, conservation organizations, recreational fishing, and a focus on specific fisheries that reveal the principles of conservation and management as they play out in major controversies. Additionally, the textbook contains audio recordings of professional profiles by Virginia Tech students. These are linked at the beginning of each end-of-chapter Professional Profile. Audio recordings are also available on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/06SnqAigflPXUgGNIHZxAX?si=Sljj3q9NRyOcclbmEE3npA

Please let us know if you are reviewing or adopting this book https://bit.ly/fishandconservation_interest

Table of Contents
1. Fish, Fishing, and Why They Matter
2. Values Drive Fish Conservation
3. Sensory Capabilities of Fish
4. Ethical Reasoning and Conservation Planning
5. Pain, Sentience, and Animal Welfare
6. Public Aquariums and Their Role in Education, Science, and Conservation
7. Gender and Fishing
8. Angling and Conservation of Living Fishy Dinosaurs
9. Fly Fishing’s Legacy for Conservation
10. Recreational Fishing and Keep Fish Wet
11. Integrating Fishers in the Management of Arapaima
12. Conserving Tunas: The Most Commercially Valuable Fish on Earth
13. Groupers and Spawning Aggregations
14. Menhaden and Forage Fish Management
15. Takeaways for Successful Fish Conservation

From the Ground Up is a collection of undergraduate writings on the interplay between health, the environment and community. The chapters range from engaging pieces on life during the Covid Lockdowns of 2020 to the environmental artist and food justice activist Ron Finley who is merging community, art and food security in South Central, Los Angeles. This work also includes an exceptional analysis of the haunting legacy of contaminated waterways in Brazil. The methods of analysis found within the collection include PhotoVoice and visual analysis—methods which have long been utilized within sociology, history, cultural studies, anthropology and community-based participatory research to achieve theories of resilience (via an analysis of community voices and community art forms) that literally emerge from the ground up.

Introduction to Ecology is an open course remix of the OpenStax Biology open textbook. The remix includes a modular revision of parts of the text with supplemental questions added.

This books is a general introduction to Marine Ecology, accompanying a lecture and excursion. It targets students without prior knowledge of the subject. The content is taken largely from Wikipedia, but curated and augmented by the authors.

We designed this book to offer a comprehensive overview of the monitoring process, from start to finish. Although there are books that deal with sampling design and the quantitative analysis of population data, there are few that provide practical advice covering the entire evolution of a monitoring plan from incorporating stakeholder input to data collection to data management and analysis to reporting. This book strives to present an overview of this process. We also acknowledge that any such effort tends to reflect the interests and expertise of the authors, and as such, there is a distinct emphasis on monitoring vertebrate populations and upland habitats. Although many of our examples tend to focus on bird populations and forested habitats, we have made an attempt to cover other taxa and habitat types as well, and many of the recommendations and suggestions that we present are applicable to a diversity of monitoring programs.

This book was written to fill a practical need and also to embrace a set of values that we hold dear. We wanted a book that could be used in a classroom because we feel that students in natural resources programs need to know how to design a monitoring program when they enter the workforce. We also realize that many former students now in the workforce did not have that training and may find this book of value to them.

Natural Resources Biometrics begins with a review of descriptive statistics, estimation, and hypothesis testing. The following chapters cover one- and two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), including multiple comparison methods and interaction assessment, with a strong emphasis on application and interpretation. Simple and multiple linear regressions in a natural resource setting are covered in the next chapters, focusing on correlation, model fitting, residual analysis, and confidence and prediction intervals. The final chapters cover growth and yield models, volume and biomass equations, site index curves, competition indices, importance values, and measures of species diversity, association, and community similarity.

Quantitative Ecology introduces and discusses the principles of ecology from populations to ecosystems including human populations, disease, exotic organisms, habitat fragmentation, biodiversity and global dynamics. The book also reformulates and unifies ecological equations making them more accessible to the reader and easier to teach.

Sustainable Property Management is a 150-page, peer-reviewed open textbook intended for students majoring in property management and real estate at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. It can be incorporated into an existing property management operations course or used for a stand-alone course focused on sustainable property management. Although sustainability, as used in the real estate context, is about preserving the environment, it is about more than that. In sustainable property management, sustainability encompasses three spheres—environmental, social, and economic. Sustainable property management is about reconciling these three spheres throughout the operations and maintenance phases of the building lifecycle in such a way that a balance is achieved between economic development and the protection of environmental and social resources.

This textbook explains how ecologically sustainable concepts may be implemented throughout the property management operation functions while also considering the other spheres of sustainability. It also incorporates the theme of sustainable building practices as a human science as well as a building science by highlighting motivations and impacts to various stakeholders. The author draws on industry examples to illustrate these concepts and provides many experiential activities through which students can apply these concepts.

ISBN
ISBN PDF 978-1-957213-38-5
ISBN Pressbooks 978-1-957213-40-8
ISBN ePub 978-1-957213-39-2
ISBN Print (color) 978-1-957213-37-8
URL to order print version: https://www.amazon.com/dp/195721337X

Customizable class slides for this book are available at http://hdl.handle.net/10919/113422.

Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction to Sustainable Property Management
Chapter 2: The Three Spheres of Sustainable Property Management
Chapter 3: Stakeholder Motivations for Sustainable Property Management Practices
Chapter 4: Sustainable Building Maintenance and Repair Practices
Chapter 5: The Intersection of Sustainable Property Management and Risk Management
Chapter 6: Integrating Sustainable Practices into Marketing and Leasing
Chapter 7: Financial Evaluation of Sustainable Building Initiatives
Chapter 8: Human Health Considerations

Find, Adapt, and Share Resources
Customizable class slides for this book are available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10919/113422.

Teach the Earth is a portal to thousands of open educational resources from dozens of earth education websites. Teach the Earth supports teaching and learning about the Earth by providing online resources for educators in the geosciences and related fields. Resources include classroom activities, course descriptions and syllabi, information about pedagogical strategies, topical collections, and more.

Topics include atmospheric science, biogeoscience, climate change, earthquakes, ecology, energy, environmental geology, environmental science, geochemistry, geodesy, geomorphology, geophysics, GIS/remote sensing, hydrology/hydrogeology, minerals and mineralogy, oceanography, paleontology, petrology, planetary science, plate tectonics, rock cycle, sedimentary geology, soil, structural geology, water, and volcanoes.

This free, open course is offered by Charles Darwin University to provide an introduction to Charles Darwin, the theory of evolution, Alfred Russel Wallace, and an overview of adaptation of tropical organisms in the Northern Territory of Australia. You will experience highly engaging videos and innovative, interactive media. This course won Blackboard’s 2014 Exemplary Course Award and Director’s Choice for Courses with Distinction.

Fundamentals of Ecology explores ecological characteristics and ecosystem processes through an evolutionary context. The course will demonstrate the interdisciplinary nature of the field of ecology by highlighting its significance to current environmental issues and the interconnectedness of the environment around us.